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Tell us a little about yourself and what you do for a living?
My name is Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, I’m 37 and I compose and produce music for a living.
What is your niche or specialty, that makes you stand out from rest of the audio professionals?
My niche is I guess music for movie trailers, I’m doing that for some time, so I know a thing or two about that. And I don’t know if anything makes me stand out, but if it does, I guess it’s just the search for my own voice as a composer, same as everyone else.
Can you give us a brief summary of the equipment you use regularly?
My Cubase 6 DAW, my guitars and Korg Monotribe.
What are your go-to plug-ins and software? (virtual instruments, audio processing etc.)
It would be an endless list if I went in to details. Kontakt is running my orchestra (custom samples, Cinebrass, LASS, VSL woods, Adagio Cello, Albion2, Symphobia1) and percussions (way too many percussion samples, but lets mention Damage, Albion2 perc, True Strike and Thunder, as those are usually always in). For audio processing I use tons of stuff again, Audio Damage, Izotope, Voxengo, Cytomic, these make most of the plugs I use. For synths,main culprits are usually Zebra and Razor, but I use many others too.
When do you find you are most creative?
It changes over the years depending on the schedule I run, these days it’s in the morning, as soon as I wake up.
What is your usual process for creating audio content for games, films etc.?
First I think about what exactly is the role music should play in whatever I am working on atm, then I think about how to accomplish that in terms of the structure of the piece, once I think I understand the structure I can start composing in my head or sometimes at the piano. When I work on movies sometimes it happens that I just see the scene and I start “humming” stuff in my head, then it’s just about getting it out of my head and in to the WAV file.
Are there any particular secrets to your creativity?
I don’t think so, just being obsessed with music and learning how to express myself and ideas in general through music as a medium.
Do you have any audio creation techniques that resulted in something interesting?
I like to destroy a lot of pretty sounding things and see what happens, like, take a pretty soprano performance, stretch it at 250% or more, then load that in additive synth and pair it with a sub synth. I experiment all the time, because it’s fun, these days I’m experimenting with reversed woodwind section samples, and stuff like that.
Any specific “lessons learned” on a project that you could share?
Nothing specific comes to mind. The usual lessons I guess, don’t work without a contract, learn from those who’s work you appreciate, don’t copy other peoples music and be balanced with your fiber intake.
Any tips, hints or motivational speeches for the readers?
I guess it would be: always learn new things, deeply analyze music that you like and learn how to express emotions and ideas with music, preferably music that has your own voice. Oh, and understand the instruments you are writing for, it really helps.